


Rose flush

by HikariHM



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: Asking Out, Crushes, Cynthia is a helpless lesbian: the fic, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Secret Crush, Steven is a wingman, self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:09:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28175934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HikariHM/pseuds/HikariHM
Summary: Steven and Cynthia are both at Kalos on behalf of some business, and given the occasion, Steven cheers up a very hesitant Cynthia on asking Diantha out.
Relationships: Carnet | Diantha/Shirona | Cynthia, Fleur-de-lis | Lysandre/Platane-hakase | Professor Augustine Sycamore, Mikuri | Wallace/Tsuwabuki Daigo | Steven Stone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Rose flush

**Author's Note:**

> I somehow ended up gathering my favorite ships in this self indulgent piece in which Cynthia is a helpless lesbian for Diantha. Enjoy!

It was a hard task to somehow coincide with Steven in schedules:

The man was inaccessible, to put it down in some way; if he wasn’t busy doing some research or work for Devon, battling or following Wallace, he was deep inside of a cave with no way to track him down, busying himself in his own errands that for him were important and that he found almost impossible to pull his attention apart from.

Yet, there they were now, having lunch together at Lumiose City, because it happened that while Augustine, her old friend she made back at Sangdem town many years ago, had requested her to help him with some research, Steven had to do some job on behalf of his Dad.

Now she thought about it, making champion’s schedules coincide wasn’t easy since each were busy people with busy lives and important titles to stand up to, and yet...

Diantha had also been there, because the filming of her next starring role had happened to get delayed by a week and a half and she happened to remember she had a brother and decided to visit him at his lab while Cynthia also happened to be there.

This was too much of a coincidence, maybe what people called signals, maybe a heaven-sent present to make up for that last time they saw each other in Unova, a time in which Cynthia got interrupted and couldn’t really make a move and just lost her chance to ask Diantha out.

And, anyways, Cynthia had been so hesitant all over again, just staring at Diantha’s blue eyes, getting lost on them, on how they looked like sinking ships on water, so inviting she felt like jumping in. 

But Diantha was way too perfect for this, too glamorous, too busy, always staring at Steven with a broad smile when Cynthia was about to tell her something that maybe gave her a clue of how strong these feelings she had accidentally caught for her the night they met were.

For a moment, when Augustine went to show Steven some very _interesting rock_ , she was left alone with Diantha, who again, ran a hand through her hair, chuckling, and said completely in Kalosian:

“Just Steven being Steven. He’s lovely.”

And when Cynthia didn’t know what to reply to that, Diantha laughed, shutting her eyes, posing a hand to her cheek.

“Ah, my bad, I know you aren’t fluent in Kalosian.”

That hadn’t been the problem, no; it was that she had felt a bit jealous that Diantha had called Steven lovely, even if he was already engaged and obviously out of the game.

“It’s alright. I can understand the basics.”

“You speak it very fine anyways, don't worry.”

And they remained silent, Diantha smiling at her softly, with those rosy lips of hers that were just perfect, a strand of curly hair falling on her forehead.

And Cynthia thought that maybe this was her chance to do a move; they were alone, after all, if she said something ridiculously flirtatious, Augustine wouldn’t know she was intending to flirt with his sister; even though he wouldn’t really care being the way he was, she was still ashamed of embarrassing herself too much.

But... what if this was completely uncalled for and only made Diantha uncomfortable? In all honesty, how many chances did she have with Diantha anyways? She was a famous actress worldwide, she surely had a lot of men and women chasing after her, surely many important people of the showbiz had offered her their affections, surely many top models had wanted to be with her, most likely she was already seeing someone, a woman like Diantha couldn’t simply be single.

So, Cynthia opened her mouth to talk, to maybe tell her “hey, might sound crazy, but... would you like to go grab some coffee after this? Just the two of us?”

But again, she got so lost in the glamorous sight of Diantha, on her transparent facade, on how beautifully peculiarly she pronounced the u’s in Kantonese, and got disarmed right there to the point she couldn’t say what she meant to.

“Let’s go with the guys,” was all her lovestruck head could elaborate. 

Once more, she chuckled, “oui, oui, let’s save Augustine from Steven, we all know better than to let him ramble.”

It surely pained her to have done that but... she was better staying in her lane, that was what she told herself.

And that was why she was spinning the coffee in front of her with an altered mood, trying to canalize this antsy energy and jealous twist on her stomach in something else while expecting her food to arrive, as well as waiting for Steven to be done with his call.

“Okay, love, I hope you have a gorgeous night,” it was so odious to listen to how he had picked such words and ways to verbalize from Wallace. “I miss you.”

He went silent as he heard the reply on the phone.

“I love you more, Walls.”

And he laughed. 

“Alright, alright. Bye bye, rest well.”

And he hung up, smiling, casually, as he was so very used to this by now. And then he placed his PokéNav over the table and started a very, very casual chat.

“Imagine the people who have long distance relationships. Imagine being in a relationship with someone from Alola being from Kanto. That’s a 19 hours time zone difference right there.”

“If I could only have a relationship, Steven, I wouldn’t care if it was long distance or not.”

Sometimes this man got so caught up on his pink bubble of romance and bliss to realize not everyone had the same luck as him.

Thankfully, or maybe unfortunately, he seemed to realize something was off for the sheer tone of her voice and the way she sighed.

“Is anything the matter?”

“Eh.”

“Come on, you’ve got the luck to see Diantha again after a long while of daydreaming with this and just because her filming got delayed, you are in a good situation right now, I’d say you are a lucky one.”

She stirred in her place, grunting, “not when all we do is talk about you and Augustine.”

Right at that moment, the waiter arrived with one of their dishes, and after thanking with his very fine mannerisms, Steven grabbed his silverware and whispered in a deadpan tone.

“Come on now. Haven’t you flirted with her in the least minimum? Haven’t you asked her out yet? You said you were about to do it when you last saw her on Unova.”

“How am I even supposed to do that, Steven? Literally, how?”

“Cynthia!” He seemed to grow desperate. “You just go and tell her if she wants to hang out and that’s it!”

Then, the waiter arrived with her dish, and she played it up in the sake of showing fine mannerisms, stopping briefly to thank the man and then shift back again to her former mood.

“I can’t do it, okay? I can’t. That time I had drunk a beer and I thought I could do it but- I can’t.”

“It isn’t that hard.”

“It is when I can’t even look at her without blushing, silly!”

He chuckled very discreetly, shaking his head as he cut a slice of his nourishment, “rule yourself then and do it! It’s just like Lissi says, if you're not brave just play it up and _act_ brave.”

“Steven, you make it look so easy but you have to realize not everyone is you and not everyone has the same luck.”

“I’m well aware of that, all I’m saying is that getting nervous isn’t an excuse to pin this much. Use your quirks to your favor, if you blush while asking her out she’ll surely find it adorable.”

“Adorable you say? You call adorable to making a clown of myself?”

He tilted his head in a poker face, “Cynthia, you beat ass indiscriminately at the league, you’ve even seen Giratina itself and handled it smoothly, and you are telling me you are scared of Diantha?”

Steven was really insufferable, putting it down that way, so, growing desperate, she whisper shouted, “holy fuck, you were also scared to ask Wallace out, you were so damn scared even if he already was your friend, you were pining even worse than I am, you felt so threatened and-”

“And we risked it and I’m going to marry him now, Cynthia.”

She had to bite her tongue, mentally cursing Steven for showing off once more that he was just about to get married with his biggest crush, Wallace, no more, no less.

Yet, he shifted his expression to a more friendly one when Cynthia didn’t speak for a long while, seemingly not wanting that chat to be over there, unsolved. After all, he didn’t want to just be right, no, he wanted to actually help Cynthia to deal with those feelings.

“What I’m saying is that... if Wallace and I hadn’t risked it and gotten over our shyness and nervousness, we wouldn’t be about to get married. When I was thinking of asking him out, I was so afraid of ending up making a clown of myself, of ending up ruining everything, that I could have been misreading signs, too blinded by my pining for him.”

She bit her lip, focusing again on spinning her coffee.

“I get how you are feeling. You don’t want to expose your heart to be broken or mocked at, yet you can’t just keep yourself away from Diantha and think of all the possibilities y’all have whenever you see her. I know it’s also embarrassing that you are here helping the Professor and trying to ask his sister out, but at the end of the day, who cares? It’s only up to you and Diantha to decide.”

Helplessly, she proceeded to chew from her food, shaking her head, breathing hard through her nose.

“Besides, you are hot, you nerd. If the issue is that you think she doesn’t find you appealing...”

“Come on,” she put her hands to her hair. “She’s so gorgeous it actually hurts. She could have whoever she wanted to have, if it isn’t that she’s taken already and I don’t know it.”

“She isn’t taken, and well, I get that your aesthetics are both different, but I’m sure she’ll like a goth lesbian as a girlfriend.”

“Oh, Steven, shut up!”

As always, he laughed at his own joke, proceeding to eat, and then, he wiped his lips delicately, displaying once more such nice and refined mannerisms.

“All I’m saying is that, you’ve got the chance to coincide with Diantha before she goes to Galar to film that new movie of hers. Take it.”

And after that, they kept going on with lunch, talking about other stuff, the topics more often than not leaning towards the direction of rocks or Wallace as Steven couldn’t seem to stop talking about neither of them, and they finished their food to go on another errands.

But Steven's words kept echoing on her mind, “you’ve got the chance to coincide with Diantha, take it.”

When it because the nighttime, Cynthia rolled in the bed for several hours thinking of that; Diantha was supposed to already be in Galar, fate has decided to delay her date, and now she was there, and Cynthia was also there, and if there was a right moment to ask for this, to take the chance before she had also to go back to Sinnoh, it was this one.

The thought wondered around her mind until... that day.

She was again at the lab, with Augustine, doing a testing in both their Garchomps, with Steven there offering his mega Metagross for the test too, and it all was normal.

But then, this other man arrived –Lysandre was his name, and he said that he was interested in this one research as the professor’s pupil he was, however, the moment he met Augustine the vibe changed drastically, as Augustine would only stare at him, smile way too much, get too close to him, throw inside jokes every now and then to the point it made her and Steven feel like intruding.

Until, of course, Steven dared to assume the sort of relationship those both shared and just went around showing off he was also in a couple to erase himself from the awkward portrait.

“My fiancé also has a Gyarados, both are so powerful, you know? Both in battles and in contests. They are monstrously elegant.”

And Augustine flowed with it, “he’s also very knowledgeable, isn’t he?”

“Oh, yes, he’s a lorekeeper, too, one of the few Sootopolitans left, and a guardian and all.”

And Lysandre added, “I’d love to talk to him some time. I love being in the presence of knowledgeable people.”

And the side glare he gave to Augustine was enough for Cynthia to want to break everything because if she had have already enough from this nausea at her stomach with Steven rubbing in her face how happy he was with his idol fiancé, now it was also Augustine showing off how well he and his pupil got along, and-

And then, Diantha arrived as the icing of the cake. 

Because it wasn’t only these people reminding her of how single she was, no, it was Diantha being there, looking so perfect, looking like the absolute end of her, like an untouchable, distant diamond sky she couldn’t reach out to.

And if Steven had also felt like third wheeling the Professor and his pupil, he fixed this by sticking to Diantha’s side, trying to make Cynthia join their chats, but then getting too carried away speaking Kalosian since everybody else there but her were fluent in it, making it be only Cynthia mildly trying to flow with the conversation, as she watched all of them getting along perfectly well, and this made her feel like an outsider to Diantha’s portray.

Maybe this was the sign that she should give up on this already; she couldn’t even hold a conversation with her for too long, she couldn’t fit in a social context with her, not even when it was just Steven, Augustine, his pupil and her, she couldn’t aim to fit in Diantha’s actual lifestyle, lifestyle in which she had to deal with so many producers and idols and actors.

Cynthia gave in, zoning out of the conversation, pretending to be paying attention but only focusing on the way Steven played with his mega stick pin, spinning it over the table, making her absentmindedly think that he could lose it accidentally if he was that careless with it.

And there was a moment in which they finished the tests and all of the sudden Augustine seemed too keen to be left alone with Lysandre, cutting off the casual chat post-study.

Steven’s words echoed in Cynthia’s head as the three of them were led to the door by Augustine and Lysandre, thinking of how another day went by and she did nothing about these strong feelings she accidentally caught for Diantha months ago when she met her in a gathering with all the champions.

She was an utter failure, Cynthia thought as they were at the doorstep, walking down the stairs to the street; she had already made a clown of herself, after all Steven was right, how in the world could she call herself the most threatening champion if she was incapable of asking this fairy princess out?

“Well, guys, see you soon, then!” Diantha said, sealing their fates. “Well, if I’m still around.”

Augustine rolled his eyes, “keep on flexing how sought after you are.”

“Well, I’m just gonna leave you alone since it seems like you really need it,” she paused for some seconds and then resumed. “The break, I mean.”

Her brother seemed to get offended by the exposure of something obvious. Lysandre, on the other hand, sustained his poker face, he seemed to be too strong to Diantha’s effects.

“Well, it was very nice to see y’all.”

“Oh, I say the same, Cynthia! Thank you for borrowing your monstrously strong Garchomp to us! You were very helpful.”

Lysandre nodded, “thank you, be safe.”

And then Steven said, “it was very nice meeting you, I’ll see if Wallace wants to join us in a video call the next-”

And he gasped.

“Oh. My keystone.”

He wasn’t wearing it.

“Where did I leave it?”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think I remember seeing you wearing it.”

“Oh, damn...”

At his fatalistic note, Augustine added, “don’t worry, Steven! We can help you look for it, right, Lys?”

Augustine urged to be left alone with Lysandre, the way the nickname slipped from his lips in front of everyone made it even more obvious if possible.

“Of course. Let’s head inside. Litleo can help, he has a good eye for little shiny things.”

“Oh, he really does.”

And then, the three of them headed back to the lab, and when Cynthia turned to face Steven, he, very discreetly winked at her and gave her a thumb up, motioning a ‘ _got you_ ’ with his lips. And then, as casually, followed Augustine and Lysandre while saying:

“I’m so sorry, Professor, I’m always this forgetful. Knowing me, I could have left it anywhere, I’m gonna steal too much of your time, I’m truly, truly sorry.”

She wanted to punch Steven so damn bad right now. If he wasn’t an absolute idiot.

He had surely learned some acting skills from his niece since he got to perfectly fine deceive Augustine and Lysandre into thinking he had lost his keystone and was stressing out about it, and now their voices disappeared inside the building, leaving her and Diantha alone mid street, neither saying anything.

And for the thousandth time, Steven’s voice echoed in her mind: “ _you’ve got the chance, take it._ ”

But how was she supposed to just take it? How was she supposed to break this barrier of emotional distance if she didn’t even prepare a field? How was she supposed to do this?

This was a crucial moment, Cynthia knew, and if she didn’t take the chance Steven had crafted for her, she was sure she would be the next thing Lance, Steven and Wallace would make fun of when they gathered.

Though, maybe it was better to turn into an inside joke for her friends than for Diantha, it was better to have Lance and Steven mocking her instead of giving Diantha the next story of a random weirdo asking her out, maybe-

“Well, then I think I’ll-”

“Wait.”

Fuck it.

She couldn’t leave Diantha go like this. She had done it before, back in Unova, and the feeling had been awful –it still felt awful, to simply not know when they would meet again, to pin in secret and on her very own for so long...

She had already started this, she had to finish it.

“Oui?”

This was the moment: either she fought or fled.

But had fleeing ever been her style?

She looked down to meet gazes with Diantha, and the glow of her crystal blue eyes almost made Cynthia run out of words.

“Would you like to...” she couldn’t even stare at her now, no, she blushed and looked away, forcing the words out of her mouth. “... Go... grab some coffee?”

Her lips trembled at the end of the sentence, and Diantha took a while to process her foreign words, but when she did, she tilted her head and added:

“Oh? Shall we wait for Steven then-”

“No, no...” she sighed. “I m-meant... just the two of us. Without Steven.”

When it fully sunk in her mind, Diantha tilted her head and flashed the most gorgeous of smiles as she chuckled melodically, making Cynthia’s heart feel like shrinking and wrinkling and squeezing and arresting right there. No doubt Diantha had her exactly where she wanted to. 

“Is there something bad with our good friend Steven?” She asked, playfully.

And… screw it, if Diantha wanted to push her to say it out loud, by all means she would just say it.

“Nothing bad with the boy, it’s just that I... kinda want to spend the time with you, alone.”

“Well, well... I’m happy that’s the case. This is very, very flattering.”

Oh, could this really be happening?

Cynthia stared back at Diantha just to make sure this wasn’t her mind playing games with her, and– the gorgeous woman was now giving her a rather flirtatious smile, blushing.

“You are?” And there she was, sounding so insecure all of the sudden, not minding at all to come out as shy.

“Yeah. Ever since we were at Unova I kind of wanted to tell you to hang out together but I didn’t get the chance.”

This must be a joke Steven was recording to later show to Lance.

“For real?”

“Yeah, yeah… and, well, here, there’s this café with lots and lots of books, when Augustine told me you were here, I wanted to ask you to go together, to make it up for not being able to hang out in Unova, but- I thought I would come out as weird if I just told you to go for the sake of something we didn’t do in Unova, many months ago.”

Ah, this couldn’t be possible, this was so horrendously cliché that Cynthia wanted to face palm at herself suffering so, so much over something that was this simple.

“You know. I think you are very cool, too cool for this, and that you would think I was weird and clingy.”

Cynthia snorted; so she was the one to be too cool for Diantha and not the other way around?

Maybe she had to work on not being so intimidating.

“No, don’t say that, I think anyone would be honored to be invited by you to go anywhere,” and this had been way more honest that she had expected.

But Diantha didn’t let this statement go to waste, “I say the same. Anyone would be honored that the strongest champion was looking forward to spending some time together.”

So Diantha was _honored_?

Cynthia could be easily swooning right now.

But before she allowed herself to faint and fall mindlessly to the floor- she had a date with Diantha. A date she wouldn’t miss by any means, not after months and months of daydreaming of it.

“B-Besides,” she seemed to get a bit nervous when she realized the true, engaging weight of what she just said. “Steven won’t let us read. You know, he has only two conversation topics, rocks and Wallace.”

And Cynthia laughed, loosening up a bit.

“Yeah, yeah, we can talk about legendaries and he’d be like ‘ _oh, now we are talking about legendary Pokémon, do y’all know Wallace guards Kyogre’s cave?_ ’ Even if we all already know it and then finish it in ‘ _Wallace is the best cooker ever, he cooked some delicious spaghetti the other day, I love him so much_ ’.”

Diantha laughed loudly at her impression of Steven.

“I noticed it! Then Lysandre started to flow with the conversation, and Steven saw this chance to keep rambling, I wanted to kick Lysandre for encouraging him, you have no idea.”

“Yes! Steven saw a prey and he got along with it.”

“Well, well, now I’m glad we are about to flee this scene of horny gays.”

Cynthia couldn’t help it, she burst in laughter at that comment, and Diantha blushed, realizing she had just stopped acting so glamorous and correct to throw that line with that wording in specific.

“Ah, sorry, sorry, you know, Augustine is my brother and I can’t help calling him names-”

“They are horny gays. Augustine was drooling for Lysandre the whole time, and Steven– I’ve seen enough in this life to be in my right to state this.”

“Oh my god, same! Augustine doesn’t even need to do anything at all, I’ve seen enough to affirm this.”

And if they were horny gays, Cynthia was a helpless lesbian, she told herself, holding back the urge to say it out loud.

“Augus is so obvious but still insists on introducing Lysandre as his pupil.”

“Pupil in which regards, huh?”

Diantha laughed in a very bass note, and Cynthia wondered if she had been too wicked already.

“Let people find out about these private lessons and his career will be wrecked.”

And once more they laughed gently at their own comments, and this was an amazing feeling, to know they could talk in this way, to see Diantha cheering her up in her jokes instead of getting negatively scandalized.

“But, anyways,” Diantha shook her head, moving her fine hands from side to side. “It’s enough talk about them, now I want to know more about you, so hop in the car.”

“Alright, but, let’s make something clear- I was the one to invite you, so it’s my treat.”

Diantha almost pouted, tilting her head in an adorable way.

“No way! It’s me the one taking you to the café! It obviously is my treat!”

“Diantha, seriously, I can pay.”

‘ _I might have been unconsciously saving up money for this moment in specific._ ’

And Diantha dared to place her fingertips on her wrist, staring up at her with those lovely eyes of hers, grinning sweetly.

“Seriously. It’s on me.”

If requested this way, Cynthia would be giving in the moon, the sky and the stars to this woman and this woman alone.

“You’ll let me pay the tip.”

She shook her head, lifting her eyebrows sympathetically, withdrawing her gentle hand, “hop in the car at once, Cynthia.”

“But you’ll waste gas on me, the least I can do is pay the coffee-”

“Get in the car. We have all evening to bicker over who pays what.”

Was this an invitation, then? Because if that was the case, she couldn’t wait to spend all her time bickering with this gorgeous woman, then.

“I’ll try to speak a bit more Kalosian to you. Sinnohan Kantonese is hard to keep up with.”

“Oh, no, it’s alright, your kantonse is lovely. Sinnohan accents just sound lovely when you are speaking it.”

Cynthia must have been dreaming.

She really believed she was dreaming. More so when she was in Diantha’s car watching her through the rear mirror, focused on driving, looking so cute while she sang songs on the radio and shared her favorites with her along with stories about why she liked them so much.

More so when they were already at the café and Diantha read and translated all the Kalosian menus to her, more so when Diantha would listen keenly to everything she had to say about mythology, tilting her head and encouraging her with very good questions, even more so when Diantha began to compliment her for being so smart, for having such enriching talk.

More so when Diantha began to show off her own wicked sense of humor. More so when she entrusted to her some gossipy and personal experiences at filming.

More so when she opened up a bit to talk about her family.

More so when Diantha asked for her phone number to call her up and arrange a next meeting before both went overseas.

More so when Diantha made a selfie of themselves and sent it to Steven with a caption saying ‘ _what you missed for losing your keystone_ ’, for Cynthia to then have her own phone buzzing a minute afterward with a capitalized‘ _yas queen! Congrats!’_ text from Steven.

More so when they said goodbye with two kisses in the cheek, in classical Kalosian fashion, and she could feel Diantha’s soft lips resting on her skin for the most delirious of instants.

But Cynthia went to sleep, woke up the next day to Diantha’s message saying ‘ _yesterday was fun, I’m so glad we could get to know each other better, thank you’_ , and she realized this hadn’t been a dream, that she finally dared to take the first step and this was real, and...

Cynthia placed her phone aside as she grinned widely, pleased, sensing some sort of peace settling over her chest. 

She had a good feeling about this one. Maybe her luck was changing. Maybe she would rule it this time. Maybe. Hopefully. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you read through all this whimsical work thank you a lot!


End file.
